Zeiad "Z" Doleh won't seem like himself for the next few weeks. Customers shouldn't take it personally if the Evansville car dealer doesn't step outside with them anymore to shoot the breeze and smoke a cigarette.

Doleh is a Muslim. For the next month the two- to three-pack-a-day smoker will be going cold turkey during daylight hours for Ramadan, Islam's holy month.

During Ramadan, Muslims aren't supposed to eat, drink, smoke or even swallow an aspirin between sunup and sundown.

"It's hard but you do it for the sake of God," said Doleh, 47, of Newburgh.

The timing of Ramadan follows a lunar calendar. This year it starts today for North Americans.

Doleh, a native of Kuwait, moved here 27 years ago, when he was 20 and new to the United States. He started smoking because he was lonely and far from his family.

"Smoking is unacceptable to the parents when you are young," Doleh said.

Smoking rates in many Muslim countries are high, according to the World Health Organization. Sixty percent or more of men smoke in Turkey, Yemen and Tunisia, for instance. Between 50 percent and 59 percent do in Indonesia. In the U.S. and Canada, by comparison, only 20 percent to 29 percent of men smoke.

Smokers like Doleh are willing to give up their habit all day, every day during Ramadan because the month of fasting is one of the five pillars, or spiritual obligations, of Islam. Ramadan is the month Islam teaches that Allah began to reveal the Quran to the Prophet Muhammad.

Followers are encouraged to spend more time in worship that month, donate to charity and generally improve their self-control. During Ramadan, "rich and poor feel the same thing," Doleh said.

Some Muslim religious leaders argue cigarettes should be off limits all year, not just during Ramadan, because of their devastating health effects. A few scholars counter that the Quran doesn't specifically mention smoking, so it isn't forbidden even during Ramadan.

Regardless, many groups, such as the Islamic Medical Association of North America, see Ramadan as the perfect time for smokers to stop.

Medical research shows it takes at least 30 days to change a habit, said Dr. Muhammad Hussain, a local physician and nonsmoker who said his brother kicked a tobacco addiction during Ramadan. "Your body needs that much time to get weaned off the substance."

Those who don't intend to quit smoking altogether do often start cutting back a week to 10 days before Ramadan, Hussain said. So do coffee and tea drinkers.

"People tell me to do that but it doesn't work," Doleh said. Before and during Ramadan, he's still in his normal environment, around a lot of smokers, traveling a lot for work and attending auto auctions — the time he lights up most often.

As he waits for sundown each day of the fast, "I tell myself not to think about (smoking)," Doleh said.

He tries to avoid other smokers and may keep conversations shorter than usual with customers who smoke. "I cannot stand to be around people who smoke because I want it. It's extremely hard."

Once sunset comes, Doleh said, he lights up. "I'll become like a chain smoker," puffing nearly a pack of cigarettes each evening. On weekends, he will stay up late, then sleep in the next morning. He'll take a nap, too, if he can, to help the day pass faster.

"The first three days will be very awful," he said. "The first few days when you are fasting you get a severe headache. The body's asking for nicotine and I can't have it. It gets me a little bit shook up, short-tempered."

His wife also smokes, although far less than he does, Doleh said. With two people in the same household going through nicotine withdrawal, "it's not good," Doleh said.